Chalkboard jar label DIY

In the mayhem that the end of the school year and the arrival of the heat of Summer brought, I found time to conduct a little experiment with some of this left over chalkboard paint:

Paint I had leftover from this very popular and highly praised picture display I made last year. That small tin of paint is still pretty full and begging to be used on may a creative project.

So, I decided to give it a try on glass...

The project in question is as ridiculously easy as : 1) dip your brush in the paint, 2) Paint and 3) allow plenty of time to dry.

And time to dry it took. While the label on the tin said it was fast drying, and it actually was on wood. It took a bit more time on glass, a whole lot more time (make it 24 hours). The reason being that glass is a non porous surface and the solvent in the paint can only really evaporate from the top without being absorbed by the surface it has been applied to.
That doesn't mean you can't paint glass of course, it really just mean you will have to be very patient. Don't expect to be able to put your pretty jars to good use within an hour or two of painting them.

To make mine, I decided to go for a simple black band all around the jar, but you can really do it any shape you want.
What you must ensure though is that the part of the jar you don't want paint on is well protected. To do so, I used some masking tape.

I ended up needing 2-3 coats of paint to get the desired effect, mostly because I took care to make them as thin as possible to avoid any dripping effect and bleeding through the masking tape. I let the paint set for about 5-10 minutes between coats and then let the paint dry completely. It took 24 hours for it to stop feeling sticky to the touch.
I also gave one coat of paint to the outside of the lid and let it dry the same way.

After 24 hours, I gently rubbed a piece of chalk all over the label and wiped it off with a dry cloth to take care of any residual stickiness and give the paint a matte finish.

Once this is done, you can use your jars as usual and simply write the name of the content on the label.
In this case, it contains my latest tea love: Peach flavoured Ceylon tea. Which, for now, I still have hot first thing in the morning, but will soon be brewed into a homemade ice tea as the mercury keeps rising. After all, I got to keep the caffeine coming one way or another right?

The trick to get that stylish, magazine worthy jars look out of your lot of mismatched recycled jam and pickle jars is to make sure all the lids are the same colour and that there is some unity in the labelling.
This little project takes care of it very nicely don't you think?

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comments

Hey Cyn,Those look really sharp. I'm thinking the porous chalkboard paint would really help to grip slippery jar lids too. By the way, did you see my interview on Madh Mama?http://madh-mama.blogspot.com/2016/03/my-intercultural-love-amir-bibi.html

Yes the paint does make the lid easier to grab indeed, which is an added bonus.

Thanks for letting me know about the interview, I have been trying to catch up with all the blogs I read these past few days. Heck I have been trying to keep up with my own blog as well. Got to love these half days of school!

Thanks! Staying cool is getting hard, we are getting hit by the blast of dry heat that usually comes just before the humidity starts rising. We can still manage without having to put the AC for a few hours in the living room, but just barely. I am not looking forward to our power bill going up at all.

Our winter here in Florida (US) was unusually cool and mild, so we saved on our electric bill. It's starting to heat up, though, and June-September will bring big bills. We run the a/c all year because of the humidity. It gets really unbearable in the summer. I love the daily rain storms in the summer. It doesn't help the heat or humidity, but I love to watch it. Nothing like the monsoon season, I'm sure!0Susan

I already find myself longing for the monsoon that hopefully will bless us on time this year. Last year we are a way too mild and delayed monsoon, it didn't bring as much relief as it usually does in Mumbai. But other areas that normally see less rain than on the West coast got really soaked. Our unbearable months here are April and May when the humidity starts climbing again, by late May we are all obsessed with weather forecasts and promises of rain. My family isn't quite sure why I am so excited at the sight of rain, until my mom got to experience 2 weeks of Mumbai heat and humidity in October, which is usually as bad as May or almost as bad.

Most wonderful. I don't know how you get these wonderful ideas. I want to share some news with you. I know it is not the proper forum but it has been on mind for sometime. I don't know how to put it in words, since there are not words. Hope you don't get offended.

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